is another and simpler method, that of separating Church from State and
placing all religions on an equality. This was the solution which the
Anabaptists would have preferred. They detested the State; and the
doctrine of religious liberty was not

[96] precious to them. Their ideal system would have been an Anabaptist
theocracy; separation was the second best.

In Europe, public opinion was not ripe for separation, inasmuch as the
most powerful religious bodies were alike in regarding toleration as
wicked indifference. But it was introduced in a small corner of the new
world beyond the Atlantic in the seventeenth century. The Puritans who
fled from the intolerance of the English Church and State and founded
colonies in New England, were themselves equally intolerant, not only to
Anglicans and Catholics, but to Baptists and Quakers. They set up
theocratical governments from which all who did not belong to their own
sect were excluded. Roger Williams had imbibed from the Dutch Arminians
the idea of separation of Church from State. On account of this heresy
he was driven from Massachusetts, and he founded Providence to be a
refuge for those whom the Puritan colonists persecuted. Here he set up a
democratic constitution in which the magistrates had power only in civil
matters and could not interfere with religion. Other towns were
presently founded in Rhode Island, and a charter of Charles II (1663)
confirmed the constitution, which secured to all citizens professing
Christianity, of whatever

[97] form, the full enjoyment of political rights. Non-Christians were
tolerated, but were not admitted to the political rights of Christians.
So far, the new State fell short of perfect liberty. But the fact that
Jews were soon admitted, notwithstanding, to full citizenship shows how